Generational Wealth: We constantly hear chatter about how the richest American citizens often do not pay taxes by working around loopholes in our legal system. Coming from a family that taught her to do just that, Abigail Disney dives into what it means to come from generations of wealth. The Atlantic article covers the mindset one has when they come into a large sum of money at a young age and how that mindset changes over time.  With the recent publication of the ProPublica report, Abigail questions the morality of her mindset and how she has seen it negatively impact society.

Prime Day Shortages: It has become common knowledge that there are shortages of everyday products such as lumber and toilet paper.  We continue to be surprised with how many areas of our lives are being affected by said shortages.  CNBC covers how Prime Day, which typically boasts a significant amount of revenue for Amazon, could be significantly impacted. Many small to medium sized businesses have begun to use Amazon as a third party seller. Unlike the big corporations such as Amazon, these smaller businesses have slimmer margins and are unable to hold a large stock of their items.  Although this Prime Day fiasco is currently only a prediction, we could watch it turn into reality as many customers become peeved with long delivery times.

Lumber Prices Drop: The American economy is witnessing a sharp change in hobbies from home improvement projects to nights out on the town.  The Financial Times covers the sharp plummet in lumber sales over the past month which can be attributed to restaurants reopening and people choosing to spend time outside their home. Experts are beginning to wonder if this is the end of the inflation bubble or if there is still more to come.

Media and Inflation: All this talk of shortages, inflation and the economic impact of the country reopening, leads one to wonder how much is media speculation versus reality.  George Calhoun, Quantitative Finance Program Director at Stevens Inst. of Technology, writes, “The media experts are wrong. This will become clear over the next few months as things settle down”.  He continues in Forbes to discuss why he believes these shortages are simply a byproduct of the pandemic and not a view into the state of our economy.